Robert Gibbings

The Radian Woman Robert Gibbings

The Radium Woman, gives a fascinating insight into the life and times of Marie Curie. The book gives an amazing insight into how she formed her world view and her formidable drive for science. While detailing her struggles as a woman in the field. Starting with Marie Curie's early life in Poland as she unwillingly was forced to mesh into Russian Empire. The book begins with the five-year-old Manya Sklodovski (Marie's real name) in her family home in Warsaw. The book vividly describes her surroundings and the incidents of her life. Later chapters discuss her learning that a friend's brother is to be executed as a rebel, as well as her year's holiday after finishing school at 16, time spent in the country and the mountains. The biography continues through the early difficult days of making a living by teaching, supporting her sister who was studying medicine in Paris, starting an illegal Polish school for peasant children in the country, and an unhappy love affair. Then after a brief redirection into her life in Belgium then how she spent days of study both in Paris and in Warsaw. "That was the part of Marie's life she loved best, her hard student days, when, working in poverty and alone, with all the power of her youth, she was most herself." Later in the book, the great discoveries which changed the face of science and earned the Nobel Prize, are discussed. At each step the text is peppered with descriptions of her daily life and small significant incidents to make the story come alive for the reader.